Literal Beauty Secrets
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: At Windy Poplars Anne promised privately each Aunt Chatty, Aunt Kate, and Rebecca Dew she wouldn't tell the other women about their secret buttermilk face-baths. But one late night she's horrified to find not only a mess of creamy buttermilk and broken blue-white pewter on the floor of the Windy Poplars pantry, but also three shame-faced women who've discovered the others' secret.


_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Anne of Windy Poplars.**

**So I'm on another run of reading the Anne of Green Gables series. A good re-read is a must for any good book, to really get the little nooks and crannies and delicious little things. I found it quite hilarious that Aunt Kate, Aunt Chatty, _AND_ Rebecca Dew, with whom Anne boarded for three years in Windy Poplars at Summerside, all thought buttermilk frivolous for their old skin and 'don't tell the others.' Hence, this fic. :)**

Anne sat up in her lovely tower room during a particularly late, wind-laden Friday at Windy Poplars. Thus at the end of another wonderful school week and checking with her scratchy pen (not her especially _right _one devoted to the sole purposes of love correspondences with a certain medical student) her delightful little students' essays about the harbor and waves (Jen Pringle was such a clever brick), Anne sat, slightly hunched. Her white left hand holding up her worn, well-tired head, her right hand scratching away at little marks of ignorance and wrongs on the reports. The dusky evening had given way to a darkening blue night, with the little stripe of red road blackened out of sight; but the sweet swirls of autumn-y winds, friends right from the moment she became a resident of Windy Poplars, were still as loud and strong as ever, a constant comfort during this quiet, unimportant but still mundanely needy duty.

All was quiet; Rebecca Dew had already spent her moonlit last few moments afore sleep calling for That Cat, who not-too-meekly slithered in by her slippered old feet. She closed the doors with a mutter and went to bed. Aunt Chatty had retired in her faded nightgown soon after dinner; she'd cried that day, and Aunt Kate commanded her to bed, as such exertion tired out the poor old widow. Aunt Kate knitted, rocked curtly, and then joined her in slumberland.

So Anne, finishing the last work of her week before she enjoyed to the fullest the company of the widows, Dusty Miller, and Rebecca Dew that weekend (with her short simple moments peeping at Elizabeth through the hole in the gate), expected to hear nothing but her own breaths and the voices of the winds as they collided, danced, sang, and chatted endlessly together in a delicious torrent of gaiety about her windows. But not so. Her head perked up, her grey eyes squinting, when she heard a distinct thud as the fall of footsteps. She stood up, feeling as suspicious as Rebecca Dew, as prowly as a cat, and went to the door. Then she remembered Aunt Chatty going down after the other widow and the house-ruling-housekeeper went to sleep to butter her face up with buttermilk from the fountain of youth. The red cow at Mr. Hamilton's had been milked and her cream churned into butter that very evening to then chill in the cool air by the hard work and effort of the industrious Rebecca Dew, so now a pitcher of smooth buttermilk sat in the cool cabinet in the dark pantry, ripe for the taking.

No longer worried or curious, Anne still opened the door.

Poor Aunt Chatty, small, slight, and trembling, nearly jumped two feet in the air at seeing Anne's inquisitive face in the crack of the doorway, framed only by the candle-lit lamplight keeping its constant vigil by the schoolma'am's papers.

"Aunt Chatty, I'm sorry for having startled you," Anne said repentantly.

"It's quite all right, dear; serves me right for sneaking 'round in the shadows," Aunt Chatty said, clearing her little throat and looking at Anne through her big soft brown doe eyes. "Is it quite silly, dear, for me, an old widow, to be doing such a thing, sneaking about her own home for beauty that is not only frivolous, but for no use, for I've no husband to do it for?"

"I believe that you'd like to keep your face youthful; there is nothing wrong with that. Your soul is young still, I believe, and there's nothing wrong trying to keep the face up with that soul; otherwise the two would contrast and not seem quite right," Anne said calmly and comfortingly.

Aunt Chatty breathed easier and said, "That makes me relieved, dear." The little woman straightened. Her wrinkled hands clasped about the white saucer holding a candle lighting her way, like a beacon of light in the night. She looked pleadingly at Anne and said, "Once I fetch the buttermilk, would you mind . . . ?"

Anne shook her head. "No bother at all, Aunt Chatty. Feel free to come in and apply the buttermilk with the mirror. There's the water pitcher for rinsing, and I'll leave a towel out." Anne was a good ally to have as an aider and abettor, for she oft went above and beyond expectations.

"Thank you, dear," said grateful Aunt Chatty, glad indeed that Anne wasn't _too _sensible but too loyal and understanding to give a scathing report to Aunt Kate and Rebecca Dew of Aunt Chatty's silly happenings at obscene hours of the night. She tiptoed away and put Anne in the mind of imaginary ghosts haunting halls in nightgowns and holding single candles in their hands as she turned back to her mundane analyzing. But then a minute or so later she heard the opening of a door and was about to go check to see what that would be about when her tired mind told her calmly 'Aunt Chatty couldn't do it, as she seemed too worried and on the fence. She went back to bed, and that's fine.'

Anne, too tired to think, settled for that reason, agreeing duly with it, and continued, neck bent, over her students' assignments, the winds gossiping and her eavesdropping on them, when _another _door opened. Anne then decided Aunt Chatty was attempting a sneak again the moment a terrific scream filled the entire house, echoing in the stringently Rebecca-Dew-cleaned rooms. Anne flew to her feet, tore the door open, and hurried down the stairs to encounter a mess in the kitchen's pantry.

Aunt Chatty in her little nightgown, with wringing hands, looked down at the mess of creamy buttermilk with chunks of blue-white pewter pitcher all over the pantry's floor. This mess was flanked by a serious-faced thin Aunt Kate in _her _faded white nightgown and gray-dusk shawl, and then Rebecca Dew. Anne could do nothing but stare at Rebecca Dew. The fat red-faced woman surpassed her usual tomato-complexion to match the center of a sunset; her drab dark grey bathrobe hung all about her fat shoulders, and her face was screwed up with fury.

Anne, hands hanging palm-up at her sides, said, "What's happened?" Then it all formed together into a coherent sentence in Anne's head, like puzzle pieces jumbled into their full layout together, or a window wiped clean to reveal the world—Aunt Chatty descended down the stairs (not entering her room as Anne'd first thought) and then the door opening _after _her was Aunt Kate, none the wiser to the other women's secret desires concerning softer young skin, and then the last the stolid Rebecca Dew.

Aunt Chatty's big eyes brimmed with tears and Aunt Kate, taking control of the situation before Rebecca Dew was cooled enough to speak, led the poor dear out of the cramped pantry and sat her down at the kitchen table.

Dusty Miller walked through the open pantry doorway and insensitively began to lap up the buttermilk.

"THAT is the _last _straw," said Rebecca Dew fiercely. Ignoring the cat that ignored her, she stepped over the mess and set tea on to boil.

"I came down to get some buttermilk, for I-I-I like my face to not be s-so wrinkly," Aunt Chatty said as the inevitable tears cascaded in waterfalls down her old cheeks. "I took up the pitcher and walked into someone. I supposed it a-a burglar, so I screamed and dropped the pitcher."

Aunt Kate gave her a hanky Aunt Chatty indelicately blew into, yielding a noise like an ill-sounding trumpet, and sat back in her chair. "I fear I was to do the very same," Aunt Kate said grimly, looking at blushing Anne, who felt foolish and guilty for not stopping the collision of the three women bent on using shadows and darkness in the night to shield them from detection. Aunt Kate's look meant to say 'You're freed from knowing my secret, for now it's all out and none of that your fault' and Anne's blush meant 'I didn't give away any of your three's same secrets and yet they tumbled out just the same!'

Rebecca Dew, bearer of rag and look of annoyance at the cat purring against Anne's legs, stood up straight as if giving testimony in court, and said, "I came down to clean up my face with that stuff. But all them dreams about being young and beautiful are just that, dreams; ain't practical, that's what." Her words of admittance out, Rebecca Dew set to work cleaning up the mess, wiping up the buttermilk, picking up the pitcher pieces ("And Mrs. Captain MacComber's favorite of 'em, too. When it rains, it pours," muttered the wise old Rebecca Dew), and giving death glares at the as-yet-unaffected cat. She muttered horrifically through the entire job, keeping up a background noise of constant grumpy chatter, as Aunt Kate, with a solemn, grim but patient air, calmed down the poor Aunt Chatty, who felt as if everyone knew her as a frivolous little creature and wouldn't think much of her now but as vain, and Anne finished fixing the tea to fix the nerves of all the poor women involved in the mess.

Rebecca Dew, seeing as regal guests were in short supply, joined the widows and Anne for a teacup at the table. Reclining badly needed and well-received for her swollen ankles, she looked quite a sight, as her black hair had blow free in the excitement from being tied up in a reasonable bun, and her face was screwed up in a stern expression.

"I'm ashamed of us all, 'cept Miss Shirley," Rebecca Dew said, nodding to the mentioned, who felt that praise undeserved. "Sneaking about, keeping secrets, what about beauty and all that. It is silly and impractical and I'm not going to be doing it from here on out. God made me look like this and goodness knows He's got a reason for it." Rebecca Dew nodded, affirming the matter just like that, and settled back, at peace with her decision.

Aunt Kate was as sensible and calm as Rebecca Dew, but poor Aunt Chatty looked miserable. _Oh_, things had been quite fine before, with Rebecca Dew not missing the buttermilk, and the confidence of Anne and her mirror used, and feeling secretly beautiful to the mystery of all but their dear boarder! She wanted desperately before back again, but she was stuck in after.

"Chatty?" Aunt Kate said promptly.

"What?" Aunt Chatty said in as spiteful a voice as she could bubblishly mutter.

"Are you not going to do the same?" Aunt Kate said, as if Aunt Chatty was forgoing a duty the others were undertaking.

"I—don't—want—to!" said sobbing Aunt Chatty.

"But Rebecca Dew," Aunt Kate said, as if the name of their housekeeper was all that was needed. Anne knew it _was_ all that was needed, as Rebecca Dew ruled the roost from her seldom-used kitchen chair throne.

"What if I care if she does?" Rebecca Dew said loftily. Her eyes hooked meanly onto the unfortunate cat and all knew that Rebecca Dew had extricated herself from the conversation, no longer a component at all.

Aunt Kate sighed and exchanged a look with sympathetic Anne, who sipped her tea with the slightest of nods. "Aunt Chatty may continue with her beauty treatments but I see no reason why an old woman like me should," Aunt Kate said firmly. She didn't mention Rebecca Dew's resignation of the use of buttermilk but it needed no further mentioning.

Aunt Chatty calmed down and drank her tea before being taken to bed by Aunt Kate. Anne meekly followed behind them, and Rebecca Dew was left to blow out the light and make up the rear, calling That Cat into line with them and saying, "Imagine that, the likes of us sneaking 'round this old house with buttermilk like a couple of ridiculous schoolgirls! If the Pringles ever heard sniff of this. . ."

**Thanks for reading!**


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